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Talk:Dead Space: Martyr
Seriously? sweet! hope it turns out to be a good read! :) DisMEMBAH 17:48, April 15, 2010 (UTC) I've got a feeling that this is going to be some good stuff; some kind of Stephen King-esque goodness. --LBCCCP 04:15, April 17, 2010 (UTC) I can´t wait to read this book =) :Seeing that it's a novel and not a graphic novel, yay!- 5əb'7aŋk(7alk) 20:23, April 17, 2010 (UTC) did anyone read some the author's other work? Gorvar 14:37, April 18, 2010 (UTC) i did not, to tell the truth :Adriano: Please sign your posts using ~~~~ in the near future.- 5əb'7aŋk(7alk) 20:46, April 18, 2010 (UTC) ok thank you Adriano Tomás Portugal good point Gorvar. I'll have to look into that myself.DisMEMBAH 12:13, April 20, 2010 (UTC) ERA Should the book be given it's own era? Skalgar 20:34, May 8, 2010 (UTC) :It will. :) - 5əb'7aŋk(Σάπτανκ) 21:29, May 8, 2010 (UTC) : When? The book has been out for over 2 months now? Skalgar 19:17, September 19, 2010 (UTC) ::Created. :) - 5əb'7aŋk(7alk) 20:41, January 1, 2011 (UTC) The Black Marker So, the black marker came down to Earth in a metorite? Before you call me crazy, here me out. From what it says, the first part of the book takes place in Mexico, in or near Chixacub (Whatever it is), that's the same name as the giant mexican meteor crash site aka The Gulf of Mexico. Scientists theorize that the meteor that killed off the dinosaurs landed in or near the present day gulf of mexico, basically creating it for us, and a huge section of crater now covered by land. Because the first necromorph, and the first Marker induced suicide happened near this crater, whose to say the Black Marker didn't come down in some meteor that crashed into earth? Mr White 20:07, July 22, 2010 (UTC) Feedback Just finished reading this novel. A GREAT book in my opinion, despite the lack of a large amount of necro-action. A lot of articles are going to need serious editing now, though - notably the articles about Michael Altman and the Marker. Altman's back story, in my opinion, was perfectly unpredictable but at the same time makes complete sense. You have to feel sorry for the guy. Failcrox 01:40, July 26, 2010 (UTC) RE: Inconsistencies Possible Explanation I'm the unregistered contributor who wrote most of this messed up article (including the bits you cut out but also all of the plot from parts 2-7, which I can assure you are accurate). I know this site has a decent user community and they will tidy up any mess but I like to think I have helped you a little by giving decent condensed account of the plot from parts 2-7. You can do what you like with it all now. As for the specific issue (Unitology's beginnings and the idea of Altman having a doppelganger) you're talking about... To make everyone a little more comfortable, I will refute these claims of inconsistencies in the Dead Space plot: * Only Unitology teachings say Altman preached to millions: I accused Dead Space: Martyr of being inconsistent with backstory logs that specifically describe Altman founding a religion. The specific log in question can be found here. It features an excerpt from a book called "The False Messiah". I accused this book, based on its title, of being reliable for detracting (showing it to be a lie) Unitology. I assumed it was giving the actual history of the Dead Space backstory events. It DOES NOT. I failed to pay attention to the fact that the excerpt shown in this log does NOT itself detract Unitology. In fact, it was an account by a Unitology fanatic, and was therefore an excerpt within an excerpt. It was being provided in the book, presumably, by the author, so he could subsequently detract it. The excerpt was from a historical document, but it did not contain history, only an account by a Unitologist, which makes it therefore useless as an actual source at all. It is probable that only the Unitologists think Altman preached to millions, and they exaggerate (like a lot of religious followers in real life exaggerate about their cults/religions). Unitology detractors probably do not believe such massive claims. It is just something unique to Unitologists. As a parallel in the real world, it is like the way some Christians insist Jesus literally ascended to Heaven, but most people don't openly criticise that belief, through fear of offending them. * There were already hints that Altman was a mythic figure: Actually, this backstory log perfectly fits in with Dead Space: Martyr. Notice how it is an excerpt from a book called "The False Messiah". It is also banned on most colonies. These two facts actually agree very consistently with the plot of Dead Space: Martyr. First, the title does suggest that the book actually tries to expose a conspiracy, which created the myth of Altman. In Martyr, we do actually find that he is literally a false Messiah. Second, the fact it is banned on most colonies supports the idea that the Church retains great lobbying power towards the Government, enough to get a book banned, and this fits with Markoff's determination to maintain a myth of Altman. * We have never been shown the "official history" (i.e. what kids would be taught in school) of Altman and don't even know if there is one: Before Dead Space: Martyr was available, the legendarium of Dead Space had never explored the real story behind Altman. All we had was vague. The main sources on Altman were from Unitologists. All arguments detracting Unitology say it is a lie and that's about all. All Unitology detractors most likely claim that Altman was not a messiah and was actually a victim of a conspiracy (just as he was). There is no way of looking what official history actually says about Altman because it never appeared in any Dead Space literature. No-one can claim to know it because it hasn't even been given to us. * We haven't even been shown the actual "criticisms" of Unitology so they may indeed say Altman was not the founder: If the Earth Government respects official religions nearly as much as the US Constitution, they would try to stop people raising this issue of the Altman Conspiracy and therefore censor the book (The False Messiah). Similar things happen to Scientology detractors in the current day, so it isn't that hard to believe Unitology could be treated in the same way. Also, when making the backstory logs, the storywriters of Dead Space wanted to interest us in Unitology. This was best done by presenting it from the Unitologist point of view in the backstory logs. We instantly thought most of the Unitologist ideas about their religion were true. They are portrayed as a respected religion (this would fail if we were immediately told the full scope of the truth about them), yet we quickly see they are bound to immediately misidentify necromorphs as their divine deliverance. This adds to the drama as their convergence with the infection is more disturbing when portrayed in this manner Lock down this page/Allow for a cleanup Can we lock this page down from unregistered contributors, or at least make it so a select few can edit it? This page is HORRIBLE looking, as people are excitedly typing by bashing their heads on the keyboard, trying to dump all the information on this page without worrying about silly things such as adding periods or correct spelling. - Dpw6 the Back Story logs inconsistency topic also seems rather one sided and looks like a hater/flamer is writing it instead of a unbiased, nicely written article. :Alright, given the amount of issues surrounding the article right now, I'm going to lock it down such that only registered users may edit it- Hopefully this will help get the article back into shape. --Haegemonia(talk) 18:09, August 2, 2010 (UTC) Conjecture Concerning the Black Marker The Marker is an Anti-Necromorph Weapon The novel and games all agree on one point: necromorphs are destroyed by the Marker's Dead Space. Why conjecture on anything other than what is most obvious: the Marker reduces necromorphs to a harmless form, and lobotomizes the Hive Mind, so would it not make sense for this to be it's original and actual purpose? A weapon intended to safe guard the galaxy and entire planets, possibly with primitive life forms, from any kind of danger would need to contain the following: #Inherent redundancy, so protection is confered despite damage (Black Marker) #Simplistic but alien construction, to inspire fear as well as reverance (Black Marker) #A method to warn the most likely primitive life forms of the danger. (hallucinations of dead loved ones) #Some form of information on the danger, both for study and for warning purposes. (DNA records) #A method to protect this information, so the weapon will not be destructive (insanity) #A method to neutralize the danger, both on a wide scale and on a small scale. (Dead Space) #A method to contain any current or present danger, if not outright destroy it. (Dead Space) #Fail safes to ensure any outbreak would be localized (hallucinations invoking suicide) #Fail safes to ensure any global outbreak is contained to a planet (Aegis 7 is destroyed) #A method to duplicate the weapon, possibly out of local materials, for extending protection (Red Marker) Refutations #The idea that a weapon would be given the capability to cause infection in order to make it redundant if infection came from another source negates an extremely important fact: only the Marker can cause the infection (Dead Space: Martyr) #How humans “perceive” the Marker is purely accidental. The Marker’s origin is alien and it was not built with human aesthetics in mind. #Again, the Marker’s origin is alien and it was not built with human psychology or emotional dispositions in mind, making these factors accidents #This negates the fact that the DNA records were useless in all cases in doing anything to stop the infection, whilst in most cases the DNA records were centrally responsible for causing the infection in the first place #Insanity is not protective and has proven to accelerate the disaster (again, the Marker is alien and not designed with the human brain in mind, so any human reaction is accidental) #While this is your only valid point, the idea that this makes it a weapon is an error. If it were a weapon, why has it been observed to work in some circumstances and not work in others, and why does it not simply destroy the necromorphs permanently? It puts them to sleep. The main contradiction, of course, is the fact it is exclusively responsible for the infections and therefore always at their epicenters. #You do not specify what this “method” is, except in number 6 #Again, the Marker was not designed with human minds in mind, and therefore these suicides are accidents. In the case of the initial mutation of Guethe, his deliriousness brought on by the Marker caused him to infect himself whilst the hallucination was telling him not to, which creates a contradiction. The hallucinations are also nearly always incongruous and contradictory: some are unaffected, some commit suicide, some hate the Marker and others worship it. In all cases, it is illogic. This shows the accidental nature of the Marker’s psychoactive effects on humans #You are painting an accident, again, as being deliberately orchestrated by the Marker. The Marker clearly wanted to be put on the Pedestal. Kendra took it off the Pedestal and Isaac realized he had been its pawn, and then he chose to abandon it. It did not instruct him to let it get pulverized. Most of the events were not according to the Marker’s plan. It is fairly weak in its control over the events #Again, the Marker is alien and there is no reason for us to assume it has a protective purpose for mankind or any purpose in relation to humans at all. Although oriented towards reproduction, this is for whatever purpose it really has subject 01 All of these would confer some degree of assurance that the weapon, in this case the Black Marker, would be useful in containing the enemy, in this case, the Necromorphs. Numbers 1 and 2 serve to protect the Marker during its travels and at its destination, where as 2 and 3 warn the population and ensure that the Marker is kept in a position to do the most good, especially if a lower intelligence species is the one being protected. Number 4 serves as a method to allow potentially better ways to contain the threat to be developed (if every species in the entire galaxy tried for a million years, someone would probably come up with a better solution: crowd sourcing so to speak), where as number 5 prevents the opposite situation, where someone finds a way to harness the power of the necromorphs for destructive purposes. Number 6 and 7 are similar, but not the same: 6 serves to neutralize any incoming danger (such as an asteroid full of necromorphs) where as 7 would serve to contain outgoing danger (pacifying what it cannot destroy, such as the Hive Mind). Number 8 and 9 are unfortunate but necessary disease outbreak protocols: most likely source of an outbreak would be near the marker, so killing everyone near the marker would stem the tide, allowing calm headed and clear minded people (those not driven insane) the essential time needed to replace the Marker. Number 9 is, of course, what occurs when the outbreak simply cannot be contained: the destruction of the planet, if necessary, to prevent further outbreak. Finally, any species making such a weapon would have finite resources; they'd need to crowd source production to relevantly advanced species. This is why the Marker is remarkably easy to duplicate, being able to be made out of alternate materials, many of which would be relatively abundant. The fact the Black Marker can be broken and still functional seems to indicate each piece could be "repaired" into new Markers, for extended seeding. Refutations Your arguments are anthropocentric; you assume the Marker is interacting with humans correctly and purposefully. Every interaction between humans and the Marker is accident-prone due to the fact the latter is alien. The Marker holds the answer to the Necromorph problem but everything you have said negates the fact there are just as powerful arguments that the Marker is a pro-Necromoroph "weapon". It can't be a weapon anymore than a medical device or a construction device is a weapon. Vincent believed that the Marker was evil and had brought the Necromorophs. In my view, both you and Vincent are correct. The Marker protects, but it also brings the Necromorphs too. Its purpose is much more than just one basic function. The weapon rationale would simply destroy necromorphs, and a well-upgraded line gun tends to be better at that than the Marker in my experience. Were it a weapon, it wouldn't turn people insane, and it wouldn't create infections itself. If I had to say it was a weapon at all, I'd call it a pro-Necromorph weapon, and say the dead space field is its hold fire option for the operator. This would be more consistent with what we have seen. subject 02 Inconsistency with ''Dead Space'' backstory logs Don't know if this is how I should post in this section of the discussion page, but I have written a paragraph below that I think makes this section of the article a bit less one-sided, and hopefully it gives a plausible explanation for this inconsistency. Any critiques of it are appreciated, as I'm not too sure how to do this kind of conjecture on a wiki yet. UPDATE: Nevermind, its all explained above much better than my original explanation. Darth Plagueis 02:48, August 3, 2010 (UTC) Message from the notorious unregistered contributor: I agree with you, Darth Plagueis. Please scroll up to find the refutations of my arguments about inconsistencies. The hypothetical fake Altman is unnecessary, as I think you'll agree I have refuted the inconsistency claims fairly well I do agree, you've done a great job refuting all those claims of inconsistencies. One question though: does what you typed mean that, in your refutations, the Church of Unitology was separate from the Government from the start, or do you think they broke from the Government later? Darth Plagueis 14:54, August 15, 2010 (UTC) (Scroll down for ANSWER TO QUESTION 1) Oh, I also have a couple other questions about some things I saw in the article earlier on when you were still writing down the plot (don't ignore the previous question, just answer these questions in addition to that please). For instance, at one point under the Trivia section the article said that the dates in the book were inconsistent with dates in the Dead Space backstory logs, placing Altman's birth about 100 yrs before his birth as stated in the game. Is this true (in which case I'll add it back in), or is that wrong and the dates in the book are actually consistent with the game? (Scroll down for ANSWER TO QUESTION 2) Also, I have a question about the Government's purposes for leaving the Red Marker on Aegis VII and the goal of the USM Valor (which ties into that). It was revealed recently (well, not so recently anymore, maybe a couple of weeks ago now) that there will be either a comic or anime movie (can't remember which) released before Dead Space 2 comes out about a group of unwitting people sent to Aegis VII after the explosion at the end of the first game by the Government, and it states that the purpose of the Government for doing this was to try to embed some Red Marker shards into these people (I got this from PS3Trophies.org, which is a reliable site, but I can't seem to find the link for whatever reason; sorry about that). Now, I have no idea what that entails, but it seems to suggest that Kendra was telling the truth and that the experiments to weaponize the Red Marker were still active. This would seem to suggest that the Government wasn't trying to leave the Marker alone on Aegis VII because they realized the dangers of it, but that they left it there to hopefully be able to experiment with it later, until the CEC came in and they decided to try and get the Marker off the planet at all costs. However, the only block to this theory is the fact that the USM Valor was on a seek-and-destroy mission, to get rid of the Red Marker. Or was it? Why would the Valor stop to pick up an escape pod if they were on a seek-and-destroy mission (which would involve destroying everything that originated or was a part of the Ishimura in order to contain the infection)? (Scroll down for ANSWER TO QUESTION 3) Plus, the in-game text log about this subject is really not clear about their orders, except that they are to wait for a signal from the Ishimura. Perhaps they were simply trying to recover the Marker (possibly along with Kendra), thus meaning that the Government isn't so split after all. And after they had recovered the Marker, it is entirely possible that they also had orders to destroy the ship after its recovery, confirming Hammond's suspicions that the Valor was on a seek-and-destory mission. The only reason I mention these explanations is to hopefully clear some of the more vague parts of the article up, so I hope you respond to these messages. Darth Plagueis 16:00, August 15, 2010 (UTC) ANSWER TO QUESTION 1: I think addressing factions as having unifying goals is misleading. Individuals appear to play a much greater part than factions in the Dead Space events (take Kyne, Matthius and Mercer, who were all Unitologists but had conflicting agendas, or Markoff, who was an opportunistic individual who abused nearly all his own colleagues). Unitology was a scheme to to channel Marker-fanaticism (which is created by the Marker's psychoactive effects, not Unitology) in a productive direction. There is probably some gov interference in the Church and Church interference in the gov, and both try to use each other ANSWER TO QUESTION 2:I don't remember criticising Altman's birth date so this must have been someone else (consequence of being an unregistered user) ANSWER TO QUESTION 3: I believe Kendra was a "doomed spy". She seemed surprised by the arrival of the necromorphs when she got on the ship and her chance of survival was always low. It is a wonder she survived with just a pistol as it where, given that pistols are useless against necromorphs. Hammond thought the Valor was on seek and destroy because it was prepped for war, and the military was prepared for a strong adversary. Hammond talks too much and sometimes makes assumptions that mislead us. He was probably mistaken. Kendra mentioned being in league with the Valor so she thought she would be rescued. She also knew about the necromorphs but this does not mean she expected to find them when she arrived on the ship. She also seemed determined to leave the ship at all costs although she was looking for the Marker on the ship's computer from the beginning. I think her priority was to get off the ship by herself. She played along with Isaac and Kyne to get the Marker when the easy opportunity arose. If we remember, she barricaded herself in the computer core through most of the game. The real mystery is how she survived with a mere pistol on the colony. At any rate the story makes enough sense. For me, the real inconsistency is how the government managed a planetary operation with the Red Marker, then shut it down and left, then FORGOT which planet it was, and took years to find it out... There's no reason to believe Kendra was telling the truth when she gave this story, she may just have took Isaac for an idiot and told him this fairytale to shut him up. EXTRA: The “Dead Space 2 Prequel Comic” will involve the gov and Church battling their way to the Ishimura to get what they think is a prize at the end of the road, the Red Marker. Instead they will find the carnage we saw in Dead Space. It would be interesting if pieces of the Marker can reassemble themselves. According to Dead Space Martyr, the Marker is not hurt by anything unless it is completely pulverized. However, I tend to assume that would happen and the Marker would be irretrievable if a massive chunk of planet fell directly onto it, as we observed at the end of Dead Space. Having a piece of the Marker survive in the events of Dead Space 2 would be not very realistic so I think another marker will be featured in Dead Space 2, although not the Black Marker. Maybe there is another Red Marker or a different coloured one Question 1 Answer: Hmm, I see what you're getting at. Pretty interesting. I'll probably change the article to go along with that, because it makes more sense than what I put in there. Question 2 Answer: Alright, I won't add that back in. It was when the article was just starting to get info from the book that I saw that, so I kinda guessed that it was wrong. Question 3 Answer: Wait, did it say in Dead Space that the Government forgot about the Marker? I didn't think it did, but please correct me if I'm wrong. Extra: The prequel comic (called Salvage) does deal with that so it should be interesting, but I think there's another animated movie (called Aftermath) that deals with Marker fragments remaining from the end of Dead Space. From the plot summary that's posted on its article on this wiki, it says that the Government is attempting to create a Marker carrier, whatever that means. That's probably the reason why the Marker is haunting Isaac and others on the Sprawl in Dead Space 2, because this "carrier" was somehow taken to the Sprawl (or something like that). Darth Plagueis 02:37, November 16, 2010 (UTC) Also, the section concerning the Marker's creators as being insectoid-humanoids, and the whole theory that the Marker was made to rebuild their society (but not with other organic tissue than the aliens' own) kinda makes no sense (at least the way I'm looking at it). When you say that the aliens wanted to rebuild their society, but not with other kinds of organic tissue, then how are they supposed to rebuild their society in the first place? I mean, if you can't recombine other tissue when your species' tissue is supposedly extinct, why make something that can recombinate dead tissue in the first place? Of course, the Marker could have been made to recombine the aliens tissue eternally, but this doesn't make sense when you think about the fact that the Black Marker landed on earth in the catastrophic event that supposedly killed the dinosaurs, which is weird if the alien race was trying to use it for themselves yet they sent it to another planet. Also, there was no evidence of alien life on earth other than the Marker (at least as far as we know), so that counts out the possibility that these aliens lived on earth and utilized the Black Marker on earth. Basically what I'm asking is if you think I should keep this section in the article, or if you think there's cause to delete it. Darth Plagueis 03:39, November 16, 2010 (UTC) Answer to the above You're right, any section on conjecture should be deleted. This facility should only contain established parts of the story. Let me elaborate on the theory on this talk page. There is no mystery about the nature of the Marker and the necromorphs... It's an accident caused by an ancient alien technology. It's B movie stuff we've simply been fed and re-fed again and again.... Seriously, you never really encounter a truly unique theme in a video game. But it is fun to look at the potential origins. I see a lot of similarities liking both Dead Space and Halo to the plot of the classic 1950 movie Forbidden Planet, and Dead Space's Marker resembles Arthur C Clarke's monolith''.'' The theme of alien medicine coming into contact with humans to serve as a viral-like infection creating monsters has being going through science fiction for a long time, and I believe Dead Space is just an elaborate retelling of the same story. The plot is: alien medicine finds dead human, and tries to repair it based on the norm it was accustomed to repairing (alien bodies) and fixes it up to adapt the corpse, based on the nature of the corpse or mass of tissue, to the closest equivalent alien body and then reanimates it (the varieties can be explained by the state of decay when infected, the bulk of the corpse infected, the amount of fat or muscle relatively, the variations in biochemistry, the foods in the stomach at the time whether meat or vegetable, whether more than one corpse were touching each other or mangled together at the time of infection *cough*, etc). The result is that the alien medicine gets misidentified as a zombie "infection" by the humans, and one that turns humans into monsters. Science fiction horror has always been based on the concept of the horrific accident. The necromorph is a classic example of the horrific accident (Frankenstein, The Human Fly, The Thing, Them, Forbidden Planet, Godzilla, The Hollow Man - all science fiction monsters created out of accidents because of extraordinary circumstances mankind had no failsafes against.) Even Plan 9 From Outer Space (worst B movie ever) was something to do with a an alien technology resurrecting the dead to cause unspeakable horrors. The psychosis caused by the marker is a horrific accident, and the necromorph infection is a horrific accident, and that's the way we need to look at it. And don't ask me about the corruption and the habitat-changing... again, it is an accident caused by the way the alien biomedicine misidentified its surroundings. I don't think I asked you about the Corruption, but if I did then I apologize for it. I didn't mean to ask a question that was redundant. Anyways, I'll take out all that conjecture then. Although I do have one final question for you: I've been hearing from all over place (mostly forums) that Altman feels that the Marker is inherently evil in the book and that humans have some sort of natural protection against it (which is apparently why we have hallucinations when the Marker tries to communicate with us), or something like that. Is this true, and if so does that mean that your theory about the Marker accidentally doing all this still applies? I ask this more out of curiosity than for the article, so I won't add anything you respond with to the article. Darth Plagueis 03:07, December 19, 2010 (UTC) It's almost impossible for any fiction to be 100% original now a days; so yeah, similarities can always be found. However, Halo's plot is very shallow and predictible, in my opinion, compared to Dead Space. As for your questions, there is not enough information to answer them in relation to Dead Space. --LBCCCP 16:10, January 8, 2011 (UTC) Necromorphs on Earth? Now I know it totally makes sense for the argument to be presented in the article to be accepted as logical (That being, that land animals being transformed into necromorphs "specifically designed to function on land" cannot function properly under such an immense amount of water, and of course, pressure.) But something has always bothered me about the Dead Space series-- that being, how is it that Necromorphs can seem to function completely normally in not only the vacuum of, but extreme cold of, outer space? Judging from the structure of them, they don't apparantly need to eat, either. I just don't see any reason why the infection wouldn't just keep spreading- as long as there was life around. 18:04, January 28, 2013 (UTC)Altheaas